With the promise to stop and explore anything interesting, my friend and I decided to walk the 6+ miles to the Bell and Drum Towers the Xi’an city center. And thus the adventure began.
A street vendor selling multi-colored popcorn led to an early stop down a side street. It turns out that the popcorn was all fruit flavored. There was strawberry, grape, and even honeydew. With such a promising start we couldn’t help but explore the rest of the street. It didn’t disappoint.
We walked past rows of stalls selling fruits and bright red and yellow signs for the physical stores. Then we came across an alley of pool tables. Yes, pool tables. This was the real China, groups of local Chinese gathering together to play pool in a back alley.
From there we continued on. We braved the dangers of crossing huge Chinese streets and learned, rather quickly, that if Chinese are running you should run too (or get squished by a car). We stopped in an international candy shop that also carried tiny bottles of liquor, expensive coca-cola, and very odd toys. There was also a tea and nut shop full of boxes depicting the Terracotta Warriors. Anything Terracotta Warriors is a clear sign of tourists (Chinese or foreign). We were close.
Soon we made it to the city center. It turned out that the Bell and Drum Towers, although the supposed purpose of our trip, held little actual interest (They also weren’t the first things we saw). We weren’t going to pay to go inside so pictures from the ground level and a quick laugh at the expense of the less frugal tourists who had paid to see a drum we could see perfectly from ground level and we were done. It was the rest of the city center that held the real interest.
We saw countless stalls of Chinese souvenirs, instruments, artwork and clothing for sale. As soon we spoke a word of Chinese these vendors were excited to talk, sometimes trying to make a sale, sometimes just expressing their curiosity.
We saw two young Chinese women modeling wedding dresses in front of a Dairy Queen (the bridal shop was above it). As soon as we asked if we could take a photo they began to pose.
When we decided to sit and rest on some steps with a good view of the Drum Tower we became the site for others to see. We started chatting with a couple Chinese tourists (in Mandarin). Before they left they asked if they could take a photo with us. Then, all of a sudden, a line formed. Groups of Chinese tourists were lined up to take photos with us or to have their children take photos of us. It was unbelievable! I’d had Chinese tourists take photos of me before, but form a line? It was hilarious. We probably could have charged money.
Then we did some more shopping, this time on Huimin Jie (Muslim Street). While my friend was haggling a different vendor walked over to me. She said hello and asked if I remembered her. Sure enough, it was a vendor I had met the first time I was in Xi’an, back in 2009. I couldn’t believe that not only did she remember me but that she was the one to approach me. After all, the hours long mixed English-Chinese conversation my friends and I had with her and her and a couple other women had been one of the highlights of my last trip. Also, I had a photographic reminder of what she looked like. She, on the other hand, saw an endless stream of foreign tourists and had countless conversation. My mom told me it the woman remembered my smile. But, I’m fairly certain my red hair had something to do with it.
It was finally time to go home. But there were didn’t want to walk back in the dark and there were no taxis available. So, we decided to brave the fear evoking, motorized rickshaw. They are fast, have no seat belts and are open on the sides. On top of that, the driver seemed to believe that its small size gave it permission to squeeze between cars, cross over medians, and drive on sidewalks. My friend’s reference to the Night Bus in Harry Potter was an apt comparison, but, as I pointed out, at least the Night Bus was magic. It may have been scary, but this adventure of a day really couldn’t have had any other fitting ending.
No comments:
Post a Comment